Danganronpa: Lapse
Danganronpa: Lapse is an in-progress English fangame created by American developer Mythridate. The game's prologue was officially launched on September 1st, 2019, and the game currently contains a prologue and two completed chapters. Gallery :�� For more images from the game, see Danganronpa: Lapse/Image Gallery. Cast Plot Synopsis :"10 students find themselves trapped in a luxurious mansion and soon discover there is only one requirement for escape - to kill each other. Follow the story through the student Echo Pine’s eyes as you unravel the secrets of the luxurious mansion, as well as the secrets of your fellow students..." - Official Synopsis Plot Summary Prologue A group of 10 high school students woke up in various rooms of a luxurious mansion with all their possessions taken away, and no memory of how they arrived there. They learned that the mansion was a safehouse, built as part of the government's Preservation Project, a project that had allowed students to volunteer to stay at the safehouse as protection against a series of Earth-shattering earthquakes that had been tearing through the planet. Each student present had volunteered for the project and had an Ultimate talent - an extraordinary skill which put them at the top of their chosen field - with the exception of Echo, who didn't appear to have an identifiable talent and had no knowledge about the quakes or the Preservation Project. The students have a special ID bracelet, which can interact with digital kiosks around the building. The digital kiosks contain a map of the current floor, and when a bracelet was scanned the kiosks provide many functions such as unlocking areas, dispensing food in the kitchen, displaying a list of books in the library, or acting as a terminal to send text messages to students who accessed other kiosks in the safehouse. After spending some time trying to get used to their new surroundings, Echo had a panic attack caused by the anxiety of not belonging in a group of such extraordinary Ultimate Students, and, in fear, grabbed the main door handle to try and flee the mansion, only to be electrocuted and knocked out. Shocked that the mansion wasn't the safehouse they thought it was, the students learned from an announcement that by volunteering for the Preservation Project they had, in fact, volunteered to participate in a killing game. The killing game would last 7 days, with the general goal being to kill a fellow student and not get caught in order to win an unspecified "Ultimate Prize". The announcement also specified that the students were sealed into the mansion, and anyone trying to escape would be punished, proven by Echo's electrocution. Chapter 1 ". After the trial, Zero revealed that the mansion was safe from the earthquakes outside because it resided in something called the "Monokuma Superstructure", funded by the business deals forged on the golf course where Art had been forced to play. Zero, reveling in the group's despair at seeing their friend executed in front of them, was interrupted by the "silvery voice" of the other announcer - whom Zero called "Eve". Eve appeared to be trying to work against Zero, and revealed that Echo had been given the Ultimate title of "Ultimate Memory". In retaliation, Zero revealed that Cyrus was "someone to be wary of" because the title he claimed to have - Ultimate Charisma - was not his real talent. In the aftermath of the revelations, Echo passed out.}} Chapter 2 Killing Game Rules Death Order Development Pre-Development History Danganronpa: Lapse was created, developed, coded, and illustrated by one creator - Mythridate, who considers herself primarily an illustrator by vocation. Her first experiments with game development came from participating in the "MFGJ Winter 2017," where she produced her first game, A Room for Thought. A Room For Thought was developed using the Unity engine, which she struggled with learning because she felt it was, "not a particularly friendly engine for someone starting out with no knowledge of programming." The game was intended to be a first-person narrative experience, but she wrestled so much with the 'first-person' aspect that she feels the narrative itself fell short. After completing the project and contributing artwork to the dating simulator game Love on the Peacock Express, she took a step back from game development for two years to work on her illustrative work. She returned to game development in the summer of 2019, where she participated in two more game jams, "Friendship Jam" and, "My First Game Jam Summer 2019", where she produced the games Comfort Food and A Shade of Blue . Mythridate has been a longtime fan of Danganronpa since the era of the fandom (approximately 2011). She was inspired to create her own Danganronpa fangame after returning to the series to play Danganronpa V3 in 2019, having gained confidence participating in the previous game jams. She began work on the project on July 4th, 2019. The artstyle is a mix of Mythridate's own style with aspects of the canon Danganronpa. The story was inspired by mystery games like Ghost Trick, Hotel Dusk, the Ace Attorney series, and the works of Kotaro Uchikoshi (Ever17, 999, Virtue's Last Reward) and from this inspiration she formed the idea that she wanted the atmosphere of Lapse to be unnerving for the player. Unlike the canon Danganronpa games, which have a cast of 16 main characters, Mythridate chose to limit herself to 10 characters out of resource necessity - she was not confident in her ability to control 16 characters' arcs or draw, "a million character sprites". . Danganronpa: Lapse is programmed in the Ren'Py game engine and has a standard 2D visual novel gameplay style. Mythridate defines Lapse as being a kinetic novel rather than a game; a kinetic novel is a type of visual novel where there is a linear storyline and little to no player choice. Mythridate defines it as a kinetic novel because Lapse has a lack of, "stakes for the reader when clicking something wrong in the trial, and because the other options are meant to make the reader think rather than punish", meaning there is little player choice beyond advancing the story correctly . Although there are no consequences for selecting incorrect answers, Mythridate has said that she strongly encourages players to select all the possible discussion points to get the most of the trial, as they, "trickle some additional info about the trial and the characters". Release Mythridate posted the first image for Danganronpa: Lapse on August 13th, 2019, which featured silhouettes for the full cast , and an early prototype build of the prologue was released later that same month on August 21st . The first build of the prologue was released to the public on September 1st , followed by two updated versions released several weeks later in order to update and standardize character sprites and artwork. Development on Chapter 1 began soon after the Prologue's first release. The Chapter 1 script was fully written and coded by October 7th, 2019 pending completed artwork . While coding Chapter 1, Mythridate chose to add the option to skip executions at the player's discretion, since they felt, "like (the executions) are kinda jarring and scary" . Version 1.0 of Chapter 1 was publically released on October 16th, 2019 , followed by Chapter 2 on December 31st, 2019 . Release Dates and Versions Trivia *The Prologue chapter - "What's In The Middle" - is named for a song of the same name by The Bird and the Bee. *Chapter 1 - "Le festin" - is named for a song of the same name by Camille. *Chapter 2 - "Guns and Horses" - is named for a song of the same name by Ellie Goulding. * In the Prologue, there is a scene where some of the students are discussing an abstract image, trying to identify what it is an image of. The image in question is the Funyarinpa image from the game Zero Escape: Nine Hours, Nine Persons, Nine Doors, itself a life-or-death escape game and one of Mythridate's inspirations for Lapse. External Links *'Itch.io': mythridate *'Website': mythridate.art *'Personal Twitter': @mythridate *'Art Twitter': @yuricrisis References Navigation Category:Series: Danganronpa Lapse Category:Type: Fangame Category:Public Status: Released Category:Project Status: On-going Category:Length Status: In-progress Category:Language: English